E3 Wrap-up

I'll get this out at the beginning: Game of the Show? Vanquish. I did some further research about the game because I'd been largely ignoring it up until I played it, and I'm excited to say that it's the latest game by Shinji Mikami. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he's the genius behind the Resident Evil series, specifically Resident Evil 4. If that name doesn't sound familiar, well, it's the dude who made Resident Evil 4. Now, for a little history...

Third-Person Shooters (TPS) were always kind of wonky. The camera was always way out from and centered on the character because that's how Super Mario 64 (a 3D platformer) had the camera. Just look at the early Resident Evil games, Jet Force Gemini, Splinter Cell, or Grand Theft Auto III and you'll notice how inferior TPS gunplay had always been to FPS gunplay. Then came Resident Evil 4, which pioneered the Over-the-Shoulder Third-Person Shooter (OtSTPS). Unlike a typical TPS, Resident Evil 4 had the camera directly over the right shoulder of the main character. By placing the player character on the left side of the screen, players could play the game like an FPS, but still have the benefit of seeing their character. Fast forward almost a couple years later and we get the next major evolution in OtSTPSes, Gears of War. Gears took the OtSTPS formula and made it more action oriented and made going into the cover work better than in any game before it. Turns out that using a cover mechanic in an OtSTPS worked beautifully. Vanquish is the next step.

Next to Gears of War, Resident Evil 4 & 5 feel very deliberate and slow-paced. Next to Vanquish, Gears of War feels downright sluggish. Vanquish also ups the complexity of the controls. Where Gears maps cover, run, and dive all to the 'A' button, Vanquish gives each of those functions their own mapping. Dive is 'A', cover is 'X', and roadie-running is replaced by rocket sliding, which is mapped to 'LB.' The game is fast, throws all sorts of ballistics your way at all times, and just kicks all around ass. There's only one thing that downgrades this game from "Must buy" to "Must play": no multiplayer. It's a shame because outside of the bullet-time aspect, the game seems perfectly suited for multiplayer and could easily garner a sizable online community. Here's to hoping they change their mind.

Vision by Proxy has gotten a little bit of attention, which is really flattering. It was really such a treat to be showcased by the booth that got The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom off the ground. So, thank you, IndieCade, for by Vision by Proxy a chance.

Did I mention I met Bear Grylls?

I watched a demo of F.3.A.R., and I gotta wonder what they were thinking. The game is all co-op now (like Resident Evil 5), and one person plays as a dude with a gun, and the other person is a mother fucking ghost. The ghost is able to levitate people, shoot them with ectoplasmic goo, and fly across the screen to possess them. The poor sap playing the other guy gets to use bullet time, but it isn't all that much of a bonus when both players get to have it when he activates it. If that's not enough, the ghost gets to solve all the puzzles, and in large firefights the other guy usually just gets shot at while the ghost possesses someone behind enemy lines and then kills everyone from behind. Seriously, what the hell was thinking process behind this? Who the hell wants to be the useless asshole who isn't a damned ghost? I mean, the ghost can't use guns unless he's possessing someone, but who cares? You get to use guns in every other game. I don't see the point unless you have a friend who loves laying down cover fire while you do all the cool stuff.

--Chilly P

E3 Day 2

Man, oh man, did I get some swag today. I have now doubled the amount of shirts that I have to take back home with me. I also saw Felicia Day and got my picture taken with Bear Grylls. But, on to some game impressions...

Sega might have a real winner on their hands with Vanquish. I'm not sure about the whole story behind it (I'm pretty sure some famous Japanese designer is behind it), but I know it's Japanese and I never expect Japanese shooters to feel this fantastic. It plays a lot like Gears of War, but faster. It also has a much more...titanium-feeling art direction. Oh, and holding the left bumper makes you slide around on your knees. It's to the same effect of the roadie run, but it's way cooler and distinctly Japanese. There's also the fact the you fight a whole bunch of robots instead of aliens. Oh, and if you tap the slide button while sitting in cover, the dude pulls out a cigarette and lights up. How ballin' is that? I had so much fun with it today that I had to demo it twice. It's definitely my favorite demo so far. I hope it has multiplayer. Good multiplayer. And co-op.

My least favorite demo, on the other hand, has to be the Conduit 2 demo. The graphics don't even look good for a Wii game. They also really need to work on their control scheme. Holding 'Z' pulls up a box and health bar around an enemy, yet if you want to aim down sight, you have to toggle it by pressing down on the d-pad. It looks ugly, feels terrible, and it's really just a shame because I like seeing small studios succeed.

Bungie, because they have to be cool, was holding hands-off demos every thirty minutes. I was able to skip the 2-3 hour line by showing up 3 minutes before one demo time and mixing into a crowd of people waving and hollering for t-shirts. By the time they ran out of shirts, I had miraculously blended into the front of the line :). Anyway, they demoed a space battle and the new Firefight mode for Reach. The space mission was one where you're in a limited area and you fly around in circles shooting banshees. It looked really dull, just like every other dog-fighting game or level ever, and maybe it's just me, but I doubt banshees are space-worthy. Firefight definitely looked cool, though. There's a new armor ability and class called 'Medic' where the player drops a bubble shield that heals people who are inside it. It worked nicely for Firefight, though I'd think it too overpowered for multiplayer. They also showed a new weapon that's a cross between the Hammer of Dawn from Gears and Bad Company's mortar strike. It was cool.

I saw a fat guy eat a booger. It was gross.

I found out today that my Exhibitor badge gets me into the private meeting rooms upstairs, so I checked that out a little bit today. I got some sweet Portal 2 swag, so I geeked out pretty hardcore about that. I'm going to sign up for some appointments tomorrow to preview those more private games for the good of all of us...except the ones who are dead.

--Chilly P

p.s. In case you haven't heard, ESPN is coming to the 360. It's gonna be killer.

E3 Day 1

I'm gonna try to be quick, so please excuse any typos.

First off, the new locomotion system in Madden 11 feels incredible. They've been long overdue in that department, and I think they;ve finally gotten it right. I'm not at the point yet where I can implicitly trust their newfangled Gameflow system, but I did give it a try. They have a nice addition where you can choose a basic fourth down play on the fly, so no more having to search through plays when you want to fake it. Not having a sprint will take getting used to, but I think it's better in the long run.

Crackdown 2 feels a lot like the first one, and that means it feels good. I probably spent more time with that demo than any other today. It just speaks volumes about how fun the basic game mechanics of that series are.

I gave Dead Rising 2 a little bit of playtime today. It, too, feels exactly like its predecessor, but in this case it feels a little clunky. I was also disappointed with the seemingly small number of zombie character models. It's particularly noticeable when you kill identical twin zombies standing next to each other, especially when they're dressed the same. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 felt terrible during my playtime. It takes a full 2 seconds to get up to speed, what's that about? The new Tron game felt surprisingly fresh. I only played cycle racing, but it was pretty intense. I played Medal of Honor a little bit. Felt exactly like Bad Company 2. I'll wait for the beta to make a call on that one.

Metroid: Other M is an interesting game. Metroid Prime is my all-time favorite game, and Other M feels nowhere near as good as that game. That new Zelda game uses Motion Plus for more accurate sword mapping, and I can confirm that they did a pretty good job with it. Unfortunately, the graphical style is disagreeable. It's like a cross between Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. It needs to commit to one.

I saw Cliffy B and Shaun White.

I'm on a personal mission to snag as much swag (stuff. we. all. GET!) as possible. I've kinda been sucking it up on that part so far, but I'm going to work harder at it tomorrow. I missed out on Bulletproof-themed free burgers with T-shirt give-aways. I feel like a real sucker for that. I also feel like a sucker for not getting a business card from the Activision exec who checked out Vision by Proxy. Tomorrow will surely be more successful. I gotta go, it's eatin' timez.

--Chilly P

Top 10: Most Disappointing Sequels

What's nice about movies is that when a sequel comes out, you can just expect it to suck. It's only once in a blue moon that an Empire Strikes Back comes out and eclipses the original. In the video game world, however, I'd say it's about a 50/50 chance that the sequel will be better than the original. Often times, even if it's not as good, it's still close. Sometimes, though, you let yourself get too excited and just set yourself up for disappointment. The following is the list of the ten sequels I found most disappointing. It's important to note that these are not all bad games, but some of them definitely are.

10. Burnout Paradise
Burnout Revenge was the first racing game not featuring turtle shells I ever played that got me hooked. It had a blinding sense of speed, physics built for fun before realism, and spectacular car wrecks. The only drawbacks were the lacking online mode, limited car models, and 2-player only local multiplayer. All I wanted for the first true next-gen Burnout was a larger variety of cars (instead of just two basic models), giant multiplayer races, and next-gen crashes. I only got one of those things (and *damn* did the crashes look good). Unfortunately, the good people at Criterion decided that we a sandbox racing game. I'm not going to lie, the game is very impressive, and there are a lot of people who like it and play it to this day. Hell, they even managed to have an in-game DJ who actually succeeds in sounding cool. I'll also give Criterion major props offering arguably the best post-release support this generation. The problem, though, is that every race just goes from point A to point B. Point A is a random stoplight and point B is one of eight cardinally-directed finish lines. The races are too short, too hard to organize, and it takes way too much memorization to stay on course. Burnout always succeeded in balls-to-the-wall racing where you always felt a little out-of-control, but the courses did a good job a directing you. When you have to quickly react to turn signals and turn down the right road, it's pretty easy to accidentally find yourself going 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Plus, having to take right turns just interrupts the flow of the race. It certainly has its great moments, but they're too short-lived and too few-and-far between.

9. Gears of War 2
If you were to pick this game up for the first time today, you might wonder why it's on this list. However, those of you who picked this up week 1 know exactly what I'm talking about: glitches and head-scratching balancing issues. Why, for the love of everything holy, would you let everyone spawn with a stun grenade that ragdolls players for 2 agonizing seconds? Why would you let ragdoll physics impact the outcome of each confrontation and why would you stun someone that long? In the heat of battle, 2 seconds is an eternity. Aside from that issue--which they've fixed--there were the unlimited and nearly indestructible grenade plants, the unbalanced weapon cycling, the broken matchmaking, the nonsensical ranking system, and the schizophrenic shotgun with a mind of its own. I'd list more, but at this point it's beating a dead horse. I've harped on this before, but the lesson here is that you should always do a beta test for a highly anticipated game. Epic got caught with their pants down big time.

8. Resident Evil 5
This is another game that wasn't necessarily bad, just not as good as I'd hoped. Resident Evil 4 was the critically-acclaimed and 100% bitchin' revamp that the series desperately needed. The big thing that game accomplished was being smooth. It was an incredibly well-crafted experience from beginning to end, which stood in stark contrast to its clumsy predecessors. RE5 kept RE4's revamped control scheme, but added back a healthy dose of clumsiness. The cooperative play was a nice idea, but it just didn't work particularly well. It just felt so forced, and by consequence, RE5 was stripped of a large number of the nice touches that pushed RE4 into the all-time great category. The weapon, inventory, treasure, and upgrade systems were all greatly reduced and felt naked in comparison. Not only that, but inventory was strictly limited and had to be managed in real-time. There's a reason co-op shooters don't give players inventories. On the story side, the Uroboros were way less cool than las Plagas, and while RE4 had some of the best boss fights in recent memory, RE5's boss fights ranged from dull to uninspired. Had the co-op been an in-game spin-off like Assignment Ada, the game could have been a lot better. Forcing co-op throughout the entire game (and I say "forcing" because trying to play it with an AI partner was excruciating) ended up crippling the experience.

7. Perfect Dark Zero
The current generation of games got off to a really rough start. Where Super Mario 64 and Halo: Combat Evolved let us know that their respective generations were going to take us places we'd never thought possible, Perfect Dark Zero introduced us to the Xbox 360 with a whimper. Never has the premier launch title of a hotly anticipated console sucked so much. Not only that, but it was supposed to announce the return of Rare, who was of the former king of console FPSes. Honestly, I can't really list off a bunch of specific problems because I returned it the day I bought it. It was archaic, unpolished, clunky, and ugly. The graphics weren't even noticeably better than Halo 2's. Had it not been for the surprisingly solid Call of Duty 2, there wouldn't've been any reason to own an Xbox 360 for the first year of its existence. Oh, and seriously, what is with the redesign of Joanna Dark's character model?

6. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Knights of the Old Republic was one of my favorite games of all time and remains my favorite RPG. When Bioware decided to turn the sequel over to Obsidian, I was understandably nervous. Turns out my fears were completely justified. The game just felt like it had no soul. Like the developers just didn't have any passion for the Star Wars universe. The story felt empty, the characters were uninteresting, and your character got too powerful too quickly, so the game was too easy. It was impressive technically, but the experience just felt hollow.

5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
I've never seen a developer get so cocky as to blatantly remove functions that gamers wanted, and then scoffed at their complaints. PC gamers like dedicated servers? Well, screw you, you don't get them because their stupid. Xbox gamers like party chat? F that, we're taking that away, too. May your Modern Warfare sessions echo with the prepubescent screams of nine year-olds. On top of that, there's the whole knifing issue, the terrible maps, the incoherent single-player, and infinite grenade launcher rounds. This game was so close to being the best online shooter ever made, but IW got out of control.

4. Twisted Metal III
Twisted Metal 2 was awesome. Then, 989 Studios took over for the sequel, and it was just terrible in every way. That's about all there is to it.




3. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
I don't I've ever been more excited for a game's release as I was for this game's (maybe Melee). Metroid Prime is my favorite game of all time, but its sequel was a huge let down. First off, let's just forget that I was actually excited for the multiplayer, which ended up being little more than a afterthought. The first Prime was incredibly atmospheric. Echoes was half purple. Half of the game was spent in a parallel, dark version of the planet where everything was an ugly purple. The enemies here looked like they were handcrafted by a 4 year-old, and for some reason it was necessary for the player to take damage in this world when outside of protective light bubbles. Traveling to the dark version of the planet was not something one did with anticipation, but with agitation. Add to that that three of Samus' four beams required ammo, something that had never been a part of Metroid and hasn't since. As a result, instead of getting to wield fire, ice, or electricity at will, the player basically stuck to the boring old power beam and saved the light and dark beams for boss fights. The game wasn't exactly terrible, but it's just so much worse than its predecessor.

2. Grand Theft Auto IV
This is the only game on this list that seems to be universally acclaimed by reviewers (Modern Warfare 2 had good initial reviews, but it quickly fell out of favor), and I'll never understand why. Is it because of the convoluted, meandering story line? The annoying incomprehensible accents? The impossible-to-drive vehicles? The clunky aiming and running controls? The God-awful cover mechanic? The blatant disregard for checkpoints? The constant pestering of in-game characters? The confusing world map? The creepy character models? The boring side missions and mini games? Niko's inability to buckle a seat belt? The absence of tanks? The fact that at no point during the entire 90 mission long campaign was game fun? I'm tellin' ya, I just don't get it. They took away everything that was fun about Vice City and expanded on everything that was annoying about it. Ever wish they went down a more Vice City-esque path? Go play Saints Row 2.

1. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
And here we have the inspiration for this entire list. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was one of the most surprisingly good games of the last generation. Hell, it was great, and even won some Game of the Year awards. It started the whole parkour game thing, and the level design puts Assassin's Creed II to shame. Sure, the game was entirely linear, but it worked well that way. The Sands of Time also had an incredibly moving story about lost love, and the ending was pretty gut-wrenching (but still very good). The Prince was also a very well-crafted character who was very likable (which is very rare for an action game character). He had a softer side, but could kick ass when necessary. The problem is that while The Sands of Time was critically acclaimed, it sell as well as, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. So for the sequel, Ubisoft decided that the parkour platforming needed to take a back seat to the combat, and that the prince needed to be more of a badass. So, in the opening sequence to this sequel to an extremely tasteful game, the Prince is on some ship in the middle of a storm, doing battle with some "bitch" in a metal thong. See that America? The Prince swears now! He's so much cooler. So instead of trying to regain his lost love, he's running around killing random people and forcin' out swear words at every turn. I fuckin' love swearing as much as the next guy, but it was just so out of place here. There are games on this list that were worse sequels to better games, but no other game on this list completely bastardized everything the original stood for like Warrior Within.

--Chilly P

Abandon Ship

Holy crap, have you seen this? Infinity Ward employees are jumping ship like it's the Titanic. What the hell is going on here? They were setting the world on fire just this past November. Man, I hope this comes back to bite Activision in the ass. I'm trying not to jump on the evil empire band wagons anymore, but it's hard not hate Activision at this point. As you can see from the above image, peoples don't much care for Bobby Kotick. He deserves it, too.

Anyway, there is going to have to be some backlash after all of this. I kind of feel bad for Treyarch because they might get stuck fending for themselves with the Call of Duty franchise, and I doubt they hack it for too long. You know who's lickin' their chops right now? Bungie. The Reach beta comes out soon, and it's right on the heels of an overpriced map pack and a colossal falling-out at their biggest rival. This is also setting EA up pretty nicely. Medal of Honor, which is straight-ripping Call of Duty, comes out this summer, and the two IW execs who are in a epic lawsuit of he-said-she-said with Activision have formed their own studio which is working with EA Partners (which puts them under the same roof as Valve). Hell, even Epic has decided that now is the time to announce Gears of War 3 (which has an April 2011 release date; making room for a beta test, this time?). This is going to be interesting to watch unfold.

--Chilly P

p.s. Just for the record, I've been saying this for a while now.

p.p.s. Some background info on Infinity Ward that sheds some more light on the situation.

Top 10: Best Achievements

Yeah, a lot of people hate them or think they're a waste of time. Hell, I hate 'em; I just can't stop going after them. I've spent far too much of my life 'cheevo chasin'. But, even though the majority of Achievements are mundane, sadistic, or just stupid, there are some truly great ones out there. Some are even iconic. So, what makes an Achievement great? It could carry a large amount of prestige, be hilarious, or even inspire copycats. Without further ado, here are my top ten 'cheevos of all time, and no, I haven't gotten them all.

10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -> 'Et Tu, Brute?'
The first 'cheevo on the list makes it there because it's perfectly suited for hilarity. This Achievement rewards you for getting five of your friends' dog tags. Not only is it awesome that you can get an Achievement for embarrassing your friends, but DICE had the wisdom to do this one right. 5 is not a large number, but it also requires a little time. This way, you probably can't get the Achievement in one sitting, but you shouldn't feel the need to grind for it ("Okay, come let me knife you and then you knife me"). Plus, you don't have to knife 5 unique friends, so don't expect random friend invites from strangers looking for this Achievement. Also, since you sometimes end up on the other side as your friend if you join him midgame, there should be ample opportunities to get this one.

9. Portal: Still Alive -> 'Out of the Blue'
This one makes the list because it's one of those Achievements that adds a fun challenge without decreasing the fun of the game. That being said, this is no cake walk (sorry...and wtf is a cake walk, anway?). The goal is--once you control both portals--to only use the orange portal as your entrance and always come out of the blue one (geddit?). I've tried this one a couple times and I'm still not entirely sure where I've failed. Guides on the ingterwebs suggest that you have to make sure you get through every portal as quickly as possible. But, hey, don't let the challenge dissuade you. Plus, Portal's just such a good game that you shouldn't mind playing it a few times.

8. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved -> 'Pacifism'
This Achievement tasked you with surviving the first 60 seconds of a game without so much as firing a single shot. People loved this Achievement so much that the sequel had an entire gametype built around the idea. No, it wasn't all that difficult to get (it should only take a few tries), but it was definitely a lot of fun to get. Plus, since Geometry Wars was one of the first games on the 360, you could really say that this 'cheevo paved the way for Achievements revolving around trying to play the game a certain way or by handicapping yourself.

7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock -> 'The Inhuman Achievement'
No, I don't have this Achievement. I've never even beaten the intro. This Achievement is on here simply because it's probably the most prestigious Achievement in existence. It's not like 'Seriously 2.0' where any monkey can get it with enough patience. This takes an ungodly amount of skill and a shit load of practice. If you have this Achievement, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really are one of the best Guitar Hero players in existence, and that you will probably have carpal tunnel in the near future. Oh, and let's just get this out of the way: yes, 'Kick the Bucket Award' (GHII) came first, but "Through the Fire and Flames" is both a better to listen to and tougher to beat than "Jordan."

6. Battlefield: Bad Company -> 'Darwin's Parachute'
When you read the description for this Achievement, it says, "(Online) Glide in the parachute for 3 seconds." Seems simple enough. So, you get yourself a helicopter and fly as high as you can and then jump out. A moment afterward, you realize you're plummeting towards the Earth and that you have no idea how to open the parachute. You start randomly hitting buttons, but your efforts are fruitless, and you smack into the ground at terminal velocity and get to wait for your next respawn. "Crap, how do you open the parachute?" you think. Then, before you can even finish that thought, you unlock the Achievement. You quickly hit the guide button to make sure you're not crazy. Yep, there it is, but now its description reads, "There is no parachute, right?" Yes, that's right, you just got tricked into killing yourself, and now the title of the Achievement makes sense. This is hands-down the funniest Achievement I've ever seen.

5. The Orange Box -> 'Little Rocket Man'
I did not have the patience for this one (and I, uh, never found the gnome), but one of these days I'm going to go back and get it. This was a very popular Achievement, and it even inspired a follow-up for Left 4 Dead 2. This Achievement takes dedication unlike any other, and shows just how much you want to help a garden gnome reach his dream of making it into space. For those of you who don't know, this Achievement tasks you with carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 all the way to end. So, after every firefight you have to go back and pick him up. The most frustrating part is trying find a good place to wedge him in the car you have to drive for a large portion of the middle.

4. Dead Rising -> 'Zombie Genocider'
You earn this Achievement for killing 53, 594 (the population of the local town) zombies in a single playthrough. No, this Achievement was not particularly fun to get. In fact, I outsourced about half the work to a friend. This one makes the list for a few reasons, though: you unlock the bitchin' Mega Blaster weapon for earning it, it was one of the first well-known and much-coveted Achievements, and it inspired several copycats. The first copycat was Left 4 Dead's Zombie 'Genocidest', which was awarded for killing 53, 595 infected over all games. The second was [Prototype]'s 'Trail of Corpses' Achievement for killing 53, 596 infected. In other words, this one makes the list not because it particularly great, but because of its legacy. Speaking of legacies...

3. Gears of War -> 'Seriously...'
Getting 10, 000 kills in Gears of War's multiplayer was no small feat. You were lucky to get 30 kills in a 45 minute game. If you had this Achievement, it meant two things: you played a lot, and you were probably pretty good. Sure, any 12 year-old could get it, but they usually didn't. This is still the most prestigious online Achievement, and almost anyone who has it proudly wears the emblem as their gamer picture. Like Zombie Genocider, it also yielded copycats (The Club's 'No, Seriously' for 10, 001 online kills), including the follow-up 'Seriously 2.0' in Gears of War 2. 'Seriously 2.0', however, was hugely disappointing, as it required 100,000 kills across all gametypes. Anyone who has it probably spent an inordinate and ridicule-worthy amount of time replaying the brumak rodeo over and over again.

2. Halo 3 -> 'Vidmaster Challenge: Annual'
We're getting down to the end, and here we have my vote for the funnest Achievement of all time. This Achievement required you and three of your 'cheevo chasin' friends to beat the final level of Halo 3 on the hardest difficulty with the Iron skull turned on, but with a little twist. Instead of allowing you to use a couple of warthogs and allowing you to strand stragglers, everyone had to be in their own ghost and everyone had to get to the end. It required team work, persistence, and a little luck, but it sure yielded a handful of laughs. This Achievement is the shining example of how to add challenge and fun simultaneously. Oh, and this 'cheevo grants you exactly zilch in Gamerscore, so fun's the only thing you're gonna get out of it...that, and you'll be one step closer to Recon.

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -> 'Mile High Club'
This really shouldn't be a surprise. If I were a betting man--and I am--I'd wager that more time was spent globally trying to unlock this Achievement than any other. It's very prestigious, but only requires a minute of your time to unlock...if you get it the first time...and you won't. What made this Achievement so cool was that it was so hard to get, but it was always just out of your reach. Every time you start up the Epilogue, you think to yourself, "Okay, this is it. This is the time I actually beat this thing." Sure, it required luck to unlock (AI is inconsistent, so the pure memorization of the NES days isn't an option), but once you unlocked it, it was like taking a monkey off your back. And I'm not talking about a cute monkey like Spike in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, I'm talking about the kind of mokey that throws feces at you and your friends. If you've unlocked this Achievement, you're in the club.

--Chilly P

DICE Makes Another Parody Video

If Digital Illusions CE doesn't want me to love them, they're doing a terrible job. They just released parody video of Infinity Ward's F.A.G.S. (I didn't come up with the acronym) video, and it's definitely funnier than the original for several reasons: A) It's closer to the truth B) It has Sweetwater in it, and C) It even pokes fun of the celebrity in the video. Anyway, here're the original F.A.G.S. video and DICE's F.R.A.G.S. parody:





You know, when I first saw that F.A.G.S. video, I thought to myself, "Oh, good. They're getting rid of cheap kills." Obviously, I was mistaken. Anyway, DICE also had a pretty good parody for the first Bad Company of what is probably the best video game commercial of all time. I'm feeling generous, so I'll go ahead and embed those as well:





That one's not as good as the F.R.A.G.S. video, but it's still pretty funny. It was more an excuse to put that "Mad World" trailer on there...still gives me goose bumps. Anyway, since I'm one of the few people who's really looking forward to a Mirror's Edge sequel, I guess that makes me a pretty big DICE fan these days. I just hope they eventually get their shit together in whole single-player level design department. Both BFBC2 and Mirror's Edge had the tools to be great single-player games, but they fell way short in the level design. I'll stop rambling now. I'm going to be in Orlando this weekend to go see my 'Stros play, so I won't be updating much. Sweet Cylde may have something for you, though.

--Chilly P

Top 10: What the Hell Were They Thinking?

I like lists, so I'll be doing top 10 lists every so often. This edition is about some of the all-time fuck-ups in game design for this current generation (Otherwise the QB Vision Cone would be on here...possibly twice). Note that something like "The Javelin Glitch" won't be on this list, because there wasn't some fart-knocker over at IW who thought it'd be fun to sneak that into the code. It wasn't a design decision. So, here we go: a list of some shit that broke the game, some shit that was unfair, some infuriatin' shit, and shit that's just dumbfounding.

10. Brutal Legend-> Roadies
I know a lot people probably didn't play this game (let alone played it online), but let me run down the basics. It's an RTS (Schafer is lying to you) where the only way you can win is by destroying the enemy's stage, which is their only non-defense-tower building. Only one unit in the game (which belongs to one of three factions) is anti-building: the Roadie. The roadie is also the only unit that is invisible unless you are close to it. It's an invisible unit, which destroys your base quickly. Yeah, sounds balanced, right?

9. Mass Effect-> The Mako
Holy shit, I hated the Mako and I'm so glad they completely axed it for the far superior sequel. Trying to drive that jalopy over mountainous terrain was about as entertaining as rubbing my knuckles against sandpaper.

8. Grand Theft Auto IV-> Entertaining Friends
I'll never understand how this game got such a high metacritic score. You had your whiney, needy, backstabbing "friends" calling you every three damned seconds to insist that you go bowling or dart throwing or mini golfing (oh, wait, the mini golf course was just a prop), and they'd bitch and moan if you couldn't shake the cops in your greased up Admiral (more on that later) in time to satiate their spontaneous demands. Then, you finally pick up your annoying cousin or that incomprehensible Jamaican dude and when you finally get to the bowling alley, you find yourself spending 15 agonizing minutes playing a minigame that wouldn't make the cut in Fuzion Frenzy.

7. Halo Wars-> Prophet Rush
It is nearly impossible to beat a Prophet of Regret rush in 1v1 or 2v2 if you're using the UNSC. Even if you do possess the skill to fend off the rush, it takes way, way, way more time, effort, resources, and skill to defeat the rush than to execute it. I know they've nerfed the Prohpet by making him slower, but it's still a pain in the ass. Why the hell does he get an overshield? At least make him upgrade once or twice before you make him the only leader with auto-regenerating health.

6. Modern Warfare 2-> Akimbo Shotguns
I think anyone who's played Mod2 (and there are a lot of you) know exactly what I'm talking about. Sure, Akimbo made sense for SMGs and pistols because those are guns that lose significant accuracy when hip-fired, but who aims down sight with a shotgun? Ever? It just doubled the effectiveness of an already effective gun. That first patch couldn't come fast enough.

5. Call of Duty: World at War-> Bouncing Betties
The very first time I my head got blown off by one of these little bastards, I was dumbfounded. Where the hell did that explosion come from. I then sat back, stupified, as I watched the killcam show a nearly-invisible mine hop right out of the ground and explode in my face. It was from that moment on that I realized that World at War was not a game I would enjoy. Now, before you say, "Just put on Bombsquad," let me say this: fuck you. Don't defend them.

4. Gears of War 2-> Grenade Planting
I talked about this in my Rules for Shooters. A lot of people complained in the first Gears that it was too easy to get kills by grenade-tagging, so they responded to that in the sequel by letting you grenade tag EVERYTHING. The best part is that before they patched the game 30 times, the planted grenades were nearly impossible to shoot down if you did luck into seeing one before it killed you, and any douchebag running around the map controlling the 'nade spawns could actually plant infinite grenades. How the hell does it not occur to you that some douche is going to just plant a grenade next to grenade spawn and then run around planting grenades all over the damn map? They didn't even disappear when you die, so every game of Annex turned into a damned minefield. Ugh, terrible. To make matters worse, some maps had rotating weapon spawns that switched between frag and ink grenades and one team would get frags every time while the other was always stuck with inks (they patched that quickly, but what an inexcusable oversight). They have since patched the game numerous times so that a player can only have two active mines at a time and they're slightly easier to shoot down (although it still takes multiple shots for some reason). It's an improvement, but I would still prefer this feature be removed entirely.

3. Grand Theft Auto IV-> "Realistic" Car Physics
Hey, remember in GTA: Vice City when it so entertaining to just drive around in a Comet or a Cheetah and e-brake your way around every turn? Remember in GTA IV the first time you tried to e-brake around a turn, and the car went careening uncontrollably into the nearest pole, and then you went flying out the windshield, and a cop ran up and busted your ass on the spot? Yeah, that was fun, wasn't it? I looked "realistic" up in the dictionary, and this may shock the folks over at Rockstar North, but "fun" was not listed as a synonym. Also, Niko, buckle your seat belt. Not that hard.

2. Gears of War 2-> Smoke Grenade Stuns
I mentioned this in my rules post, but yeah, the 2 second rag doll effect was awful. The worst part is that it was inconsistent, too. Get stunned on some stairs and your floppy ass is gonna slowly slide all the way down while Cole Train patiently follows you down so he can chainsaw-domize you as soon as you get up. I actually remember wondering why they didn't just use the same animation they used for when your teammate hit you with a mortar. It only took them about a year to figure that one out.

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl-> Random Tripping
Here we are, folks. The most mind-boggling design decision of all time: random tripping. I'm really not even sure what to say about it. I guess it's supposed to be some sort of rubber band system for leveling the playing field, but why can't I at least turn it off? I'm really just dumbfounded by this one. It's just so profoundly stupid. I guess I can postulate as to how the idea came up in a meeting:

"Alright guys, we've already taken away wave dashing to make sure our game is less fun for the people who will play it the longest, but I'm still worried our game is too good. We certainly want these people to buy our game, but we can't offer downloadable content on the Wii, so we need them to get bored with the game and buy Wii Fit. Any ideas?"
"We could take Mario out of the game."
"No, we need them to still buy it in the first place."
"Let's have the guys who compiled the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure 2 do the game music."
"No, no, the soundtrack really is a purchasing incentive for a nostalgia-based game like this."
"I got it. Let's make people trip randomly like they slipped on one of Diddy's bananas."
"My God, Jusaka-san, you've done it! It's perfect! It won't keep anyone from buying the game, and the hardcore players who buy a lot games in the first place will be infuriated by such a blatant random event! Fellas, crack open the sake and break out the hentai!"

The reason this is number 1 is because out of every fuck-up on this list, this is the only one where I really can't imagine any reason a sane person would include this in the game. It's not a balance oversight, it's not there to show off any sort of techno-babble, and it's not supposed to simulate something observed in real-life (maybe Bugs Bunny cartoons). I really just don't know what the fuck they were thinking.

--Chilly P

Chilly P's Rules for Online Shooters

I've played a heck of a lot of online shooters over the years. Not so much on PC, but I'm a bit of an Xbox LIVE expert. Anyway, mainly drawing from the Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Left 4 Dead series, here are some basic rules I think all games should follow. Later this week I'll go over some all-time best features and worst fuck-ups.

HUD and Other On-Screen Information
The heads-up display is one of the most important and often over-looked features of shooters. One thing that drives me bat-shit crazy is when information like how much ammo you have will just fade away at times. Little things like an ammo count never obscures your view, just leave them there. Always (unless--and this is rare--it should be removed for gameplay purposes). For example, when I'm a charger in L4D2 and I'm choke-slamming some poor sap, why does my health bar disappear? Sure, I can't move anymore, but it's nice to know how much health you have. Just leave it there.

I also don't understand why games like Gears of War have no radar whatsoever. Call of Duty has a perfect model for this: you see the map in the upper right-hand corner, and dots show up when people fire. This makes sense. If you're in real life and you hear a gunshot, you can tell where it's coming from. Games use stereo sound, so until surround is the default (which it probably won't be any time soon), information like this should be expected. Another thing CoD does which I think should be in more games is the grenade indicator. If someone throws a grenade at me in real life, I'm going to hear where it bounces. This compensates for a lack in technology, and that makes it a good thing. Actually, the lack of the two aforementioned features in Hardcore mode is the reason I think that mode is ridiculous. It's supposed to be more realistic I guess, but I think taking away things that compensate for technological deficiencies is just stupid.

Another thing that's important is feedback for hits and misses. Halo does it by showing flashing energy shields, Call of Duty does it with that little 'x' in the middle of your screen (accompanied by a little 'tsk' sound), and Gears does it with blood spray. I really don't have any complaints here, I just thought it was worth mentioning.

It's also important that objective markers and other on-screen data do not obscure your view. That damn "C" marker in Domination on Underpass is like a dick coming out of someone's forehead. It's already hard enough to see on that map, don't make it worse with giant green/red arrows.

Be careful in how you distinguish teams. Halo gets bonus points for brightly and distinctly coloring each team. Gears gets a C- because the Locusts make more noise and are thus less sneaky than the COGs, and Call of Duty gets an F+ because it's nearly impossible to tell who's friend and foe without seeing a name above their head (which can lead to confusion when a friend is behind a foe and it looks like your friend's name is above that bastard who's about to gut you with a striker). You may think an F+ is too harsh, but let me also remind you that ghillie suits all look the same, and the fact that the team wearing black scuba suits on Sub Base has a distinct disadvantage to the other team of guys in snow camo.

If you're aiming down a scope and someone shoots you, your scope should be interrupted. Halo does this correctly.

Auto-aim is a necessity on consoles, but try not to let it go overboard. I can't tell you how many times I've killed people in Call of Duty because my auto-aim starting tracking someone I couldn't see. Yeah, I use it to my advantage, but it's pretty unfair.


Button Layouts and Weapon Swapping
Halo: CE got it right. Two weapons max, switch weapons with "Y", and map grenades to their own button. It's as simple as that. Battlefield: Bad Company does this archaic crap where the shoulder buttons cycle through different items, one of which is grenades. No. Don't do that. I don't want to have to switch to grenades. Ever. BC commits another no-no in that knifing results it actually keeping your knife out. This is also dumb.

You should also never have to cycle through anything. This is why the two-weapon idea is so important. Cycling is a pain, requires too much memorization, and can cause some serious problems in the heat of battle. One button, "Y", should switch between two weapons. Don't over think it. No cycling, and no mapping weapons to the D-pad. I'm looking at you, Gears. Nobody needs to spawn with a Lancer, shotgun, and a pistol. You already let people choose between a Lancer and a Hammer Burst, just let them choose two guns to load out with. Before you ask, "Well, who the fuck is gonna want a damned pistol?!" let me tell you who, you vulgar little delinquent. This would balance the meat shields and boom shields because--wait for it--you have to have a pistol to do it! There, now the boom shield isn't the most advanced piece of weaponry in the game. "What about the grenades?" you may ask. Like I said, map them to their own button. "LB" and "Y" aren't particularly useful in that game; I'd say go with "LB" since I know you'll have mapped weapon-switching to "Y" like I asked. Tap "LB" to blindfire (blindthrow?) a grenade; hold "LB" to start swinging it like a foxtail. You're welcome, Epic.

Two more things on this subject: always map reload to either "X" or a shoulder button, and never make me press a button to pick up ammo. Left 4 Dead has reload mapped to "B." Why? To spit in the face of console conventions because you want to be different? No! Bad Valve (slaps wrist). Oh, and Active Reloading in Gears is an awesome idea. No complaints here.

Other General Rules
Never, ever let physics interrupt gameplay. I'm looking at you, Epic. Remember when Gears 2 released and smoke grenades made you go ragdoll for 2 agonizing seconds? Dumb. Sooooo dumb. I know you've fixed it since, but you lost a lot of players because of that.

Do let physics be hilarious, though. Remember warthog jousting in Halo: CE? It was awesome, and I wish you could somehow turn that on in Halo 3. Also, so-called "gibs" in Gears are quite funny as well. Dead people flying around like weightless ragdolls is always a good laugh.

Proximity explosives should be visible and delayed. Good: Claymores in Modern Warfare. Bad: Bouncing Betties in World at War and grenade planting in Gears 2. Claymores are perfect. They have ~180 degrees of effectiveness, you can spot them around corners if you're careful, and if you're not, then you die. Even if you know there's a grenade planted around a corner in Gears 2, it's still pretty impossible to avoid it. It takes forever to shoot down (if you even can) and they go off nearly instantly. Bouncing Betties are just too hard to see without Bomb Squad.

Never have lock-on weapons for use against user-controlled vehicles (this excuses the necessary Stinger in Modern Warfare 2). Remember in Halo: CE when you had to kill vehicles with a well-timed grenade or rocket? Yeah, took skill. The Missile Pod? Not so much. Actually, let's throw Spartan Laser in there, too. Vehicles should never be death traps. Make people earn their vehicle kills. Now, I know the splaser and the missile pod are there mainly to shoot down Banshees, but it's not my fault the developers decided that the most elusive vehicle should also be the only one with an unexposed pilot. Maybe they should've thought of that before.

Offer a variety of playlists. Bungie gets, like, 12 gold stars for this. Modern Warfare 2 gets one gold star. Why only one? Where's my MLG playlist and 1st-person Team Tactical? Actually...

If your game has "cheap kills" (think energy sword), offer a set of MLG playlists. You know why Modern Warfare 2 is losing players? There's no where to escape the knifers, shotgunners, and n00b-tubers. I'll go into more detail about this in a later post. Sneak peak: Hardcore does not count as a satisfactory playlist for "hardcore" players.

Do a beta test. Seriously. Gears 2 and Modern Warfare 2 didn't do betas and their games launched as glitchy, unbalanced messes.

Don't let multiplayer achievements affect gameplay. The first Gears and--to a lesser extent--Halo 3 did this, and it's really, really annoying. However, I'm not saying that you shouldn't have multiplayer 'cheevos. I likes me my 'cheevos. Just be smart with them. It's also smart to emphasize winning over K/D or getting kills with specific guns. A player's first priority should be winning.

Flamethrowers are never a good idea.

Dog tags (Bad Company) are an awesome idea. In fact, if you have to do a kills-based 'cheevo, you should probably require unique Gamertags (and, obviously, a smaller number to compensate). That should get rid of those damned grinders. Buncha jerks if you ask me.

Never let people be temporarily invincible (unless it's to counteract spawn-camping). It was so annoying in Gears having to wait until the pick-up-weapon animation was done before I could pop some knucklehead's dome, and don't get me started on that temporary invincibility when you pick up the overshield in Halo 3.

Sprinting is good; holding down a button to sprint is bad.

Dual-wiedling is okay, just be careful how you implement it. They had to patch Halo 2 because dual-wielding was overpowered (although I say Halo has become better because this led to melees and grenades being more powerful), and I think we all remember those damned Akimbo Model 1887s.

If melees cause victims to be stunned, be sure that stun time is less than cool-down time. This was an issue in the first Gears because you were stunned longer than it took to perform a second melee. Also, the melee-spamming in Left 4 Dead was unbalanced in favor of the survivors (they patched it to include a cool-down after a few successive melees).

I actually can't believe I have to say this, but don't make the amount of time it takes to reload longer than the reload animation. In Left 4 Dead 2, the sniper rifle (my personal weapon of choice) takes ~3 seconds to reload, and when the animation is done, you're still not quite finished reloading. You have to wait a moment until that '0' becomes a '30' before you can switch weapons or take some pills. If you do it an instant too soon, you have to start all over next time you switch back to your sniper rifle. Honestly, you should make the animation run a little longer than the amount of time it actually takes. Props to Modern Warfare 2 for getting this right.

Summary
You may or not agree with me on all of these principles, but you probably should. I'm not trying to take away anything that made these games unique, and I understand that newbie-friendly game elements exist as a way to level the playing field. I'm just saying that certain conventions have proven to be much, much better than their alternatives, and that if you do want to include newbie-friendly weapons and/or classes, offer some way for the seasoned vets to avoid gameplay mechanics that feel cheap.

--Chilly P